We all have heard about this so called global warming. Apparently it’s true. Scientifically a fact. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we need to cut back our gas guzzling ways or make the government invest in alternative energy. Why not? Peak oil theory.

The United States used to dominate the world market for oil (and thus gasoline) – no, I’m not talking about the demand for oil, I’m talking about the production! The US had tons of oil – Texas, Pennsylvania, California – and the rest the world had a mere pittance. But in 1956 a man named M. King Hubbert predicted these good times would come to an end within 15 years.

He noticed that every oil well and field shared a similar timeline – first discovery, the logistics to extract the oil being put in place, a peak or plateau of production, followed by a decline. In the US he noticed the decline took place 32 to 35 years after the discovery. Armed with this information he analyzed all the oil fields in the US and predicted US oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. And wouldn’t you know it, US oil production hit its peak in 1970. By 1973 gas prices skyrocketed, which led to the government enforcing rations and artificially setting prices.

This history lesson can also be applied to today’s global oil production market. When you do this analysis, we are dangerously close to the peak. This year could be when the most oil is pumped out the ground or it could be 5 or 10 years from now. It’s hard to predict exactly, but a decline is inevitable according to peak oil theory. Oil is getting harder to find and reach. The low hanging fruit is all gone. Even though there is a lot of oil left underground, it won’t do us much good – if we started drilling now, the flow rate won’t come close to sating demand and at some point it will become cost prohibitive.

Let’s zoom out and imagine both huge problems: global warming and peak oil. Do they cancel each other out? Will the world really keep warming if we run out of oil to warm it? Does peak oil theory tell us not to worry about global warming? Even if you believe in peak oil theory, doesn’t it just seam irresponsible to not do anything about global warming? Won’t it make things a lot smoother if we can identify excellent alternative energy options before we are forced to use them?
 

I read a paper recently on the economics of the QWERTY keyboard. No, it’s not about how keyboards are priced – economics isn’t limited to just the study of money – it’s the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Basically the paper is about how we ended up with the standard keyboard layout we have today, approached from an historic and economic angle. Yes ladies, this is what I do with my spare time.

The paper explains how the keyboard layout first came about – it was first used to limit some mechanical issues and so salesmen could type TYPEWRITER using only the top row. But then the economics discussion comes in, how this became locked in as the standard despite better alternatives. Basically the layout had a narrow advantage because it was used by a slightly more popular typewriter manufacturer – and this narrow advantage snowballed over time.

Soon the keyboard became so entrenched that even a proven superior alternative couldn’t knock it off its perch. DVORAK is roughly 20% faster, leads to less errors, and reduces repetition injuries by moving your fingers less. Crazy.

Today you can easily switch you keyboard “layout” with software – basically remapping the keys to use the DVORAK layout (but when looking at it the stickers will still show QWERTY). So everyone has the option, but you won’t bother. Educating you that DVORAK is better isn’t enough to entice you to switch – information alone usually isn’t enough to change behavior! Ethos, pathos, logos! What if President Obama (or someone you really respect) told you to learn DVORAK because China is and going to dominate the US if we don’t all learn it. Slightly more effective than just spouting logic?

Now that I fully understand just how silly it is that we still use QWERTY, will I personally switch? I have a desire for efficiency, but there is a limit. You have to pick your battles – you can’t be perfectly efficient in every aspect of life. There is only so much time to perfect skills. But maybe your hobby is learning these esoteric skills rather than reading esoteric papers from the 80′s and pedantically writing about them. If so, here is another really neat one to try out – a font optimized for reading rather than writing called Dotsies.

Photo: julian

After returning from my travels I decided to go full-time on my after-school computer programming lessons business, Breakout Mentors. We provide a depth of learning that is not available anywhere else by pairing mentors to work 1-on-1 with young students with a long term focus. I’ve been back in San Francisco for roughly a month now, which means I have completed my first month as my own boss. It was everything I thought it would be … both good and bad!

You can imagine the good parts – complete freedom of your schedule, no annoying coworkers, no nagging bosses, and a sweet mustache (until I taught my first students at least). But I want to focus on my major take-aways, in the hopes that you are better prepared should you find yourself in a similar situation one day. Or even if you don’t, so that you know it isn’t as easy as it looks.

The Lonesome Road

Starting your own company is definitely the road less traveled, even here in startupland. One of the goals for myself while traveling was to discover to what extent I need to be surrounded by people. And I decided I’m fine being on my own for most of the day – so many of my friends are in SF, I could never be lonely.

But there is a spectrum of workplace socialness and I am at one extreme – a solo founder. Hell, even having just one person to bounce ideas off of and talk fantasy baseball would be great. Someone to share in the successes and failures. I’m not lonely, far from it. I spend a good portion of my days talking to people about Breakout Mentors. But no one else is on this long and winding road with me, so the road itself is lonesome.

Fear and Doubt

I’ve heard about the emotional battle of starting a company from friends and the internet. Paul Graham has written extensively about it, coining terms like the “trough of sorrow” and “emotional roller-coaster”:

It’s an emotional roller-coaster. This was another one lots of people were surprised about. The ups and downs were more extreme than they were prepared for. In a startup, things seem great one moment and hopeless the next. And by next, I mean a couple hours later.

Ready to be shocked: I’m not a very emotional person. I like to think I’m too logical to be overtaken by emotions. Thus, I thought my emotional rollercoaster would be closer to Goliath Jr. than Goliath. Mark me down as one of those people that were surprised.

It takes just a couple emails from parents that are pumped about Breakout Mentors to get me jacked up. Unfortunately, it also takes just a few minutes for me to ponder “do I have any idea what I’m doing”, “is this really going to work”, and “is anything I’m doing actually making a difference”. Wuh-wuh-wuuuuuhhhhhhh!

My strategy is to combat the emotional roller-coaster with routines in order to put forward a consistent effort without thinking too much about it. During the lows I also remind myself why it is a goal worth pursuing. My execution of these strategies however leaves plenty of room for improvement.

It’s All About Results

There’s no one to impress by working hard. Thus, hard work in and of itself is not valuable like it is in a normal job. Take this extreme example: your boss tells you to add 1 on the calculator over and over again. It’s urgent and very important. So you do. And you do a killer job, working 16 hour days until the project is done. Unfortunately it is soon discovered adding 1 is the wrong strategy and the company is going in a different direction – all your hard work is thrown out.

Even though your work produced no value for the company, people at least noticed how well you did on the project. You took directions from your boss and crushed it, producing more than anyone could have expected. That will come in handy when it’s time for the company to consider raises and promotions.

But in my situation, looking busy doesn’t accomplish anything. I’d only be fooling myself. Executing the wrong strategy perfectly is worthless. It’s all about results! If I pursue a marketing effort that leads nowhere (which I’ve already experienced a couple times), it is just wasted time. It doesn’t matter how hard I work. It matters how smart I work, then executing.

This is exactly what I want out of a job. No kiss-asses trying to look good or make their boss look good. No navigating a bureaucratic org chart to get buy-in for your ideas. It’s all me – time to figure out how good I really am.

Happy Closing Thoughts

Now that I have sufficiently warned you of the negative aspects, let me jump back to the positives. I am able to use my flexible schedule to take a class at Stanford and enjoy San Francisco’s spring weather. I am learning a lot about myself and how to operate a business. I am being challenged. I have met some incredible people that I wouldn’t have if I found a paying job like is expected of me. Most importantly, I am adding a ridiculous amount of value to my students lives, whether or not it proves possible to economically reap the benefits – and that is a win-win!

I was never the student that actually completed the readings before lecture. It was always way too many pages and there were better things to do with my time like playing soccer in the hallway. I am now that student.

This quarter I am taking Stanford’s CS183. The title of the course is “Startup”, which sounds right up my alley. Here is the course description:

Conception, launch, scaling, and growing of a successful tech company. Bridging the subjects of engineering, science, business, finance, and world history, topics will include: the technology revolution of the 20th century and prior eras; the economics of business; founding a startup; the importance of team vision and passion; long-term strategic planning; building a successful founding team; financing and the VC perspective; secrecy vs. openness; recruiting, managing growth, marketing, regulation and other operational topics. Assignments are designed to explore key concepts at greater depth, using real-world and hypothetical example companies. Inner accounts from the early days of startups including PayPal, Google and Facebook will be used as case studies. The class will be taught by entrepreneurs who have started companies worth over $1B and VCs who have invested in startups including Facebook and Spotify. Students can expect to be proficient in the core skills critical to the founding and growing of a tech company upon completion of this course.

Sure sounds interesting, but there are plenty of interesting courses, none of which I have actually attended since graduating in 2008. So what made this such a compelling opportunity that I wasn’t going to let it slip? The course is taught by Peter Thiel, one of the biggest ballers in the Silicon Valley. The guy drops knowledge like Snoop drops hot items.

Yes, I am finally willing to admit my intellectual man crush on Peter Thiel. And if you are reading this, I think you would probably like him as well. He is a free thinker that isn’t afraid to state his mind in a time that groupthink and conformity reign supreme. But what separates him from other freethinkers is that he is a man of industry rather than a politician or behind the scenes puppet-master (like many other billionaires). He has founded two billion dollar companies (Paypal and Palantir) and been heavily involved in another (Facebook).

Here are some readings to check out to get a feel for what Peter Thiel is all about:

• Peter Thiel: 21st Century Free Radical
• New Yorker Profile
• The Education of a Libertarian by Peter Thiel
• The End of the Future by Peter Thiel

Let me know if you are interested learning some of the nuggets of wisdom that Professor Thiel teaches in class.

Question for you: do you have any intellectual man/woman crushes?
 

No, I did not add the flowers to that picture. I think it is really how it was shot! Source

The Blame Game is something I like to play. No, this does not mean projecting my faults upon others – do you really think that lowly of me? The Blame Game is where I assess the multiple factors of blame for a given problem. You will commonly see what I call the Blame Game used in civil lawsuits determining to what extent someone is financially responsible. A more commonly used term for this is comparative fault or comparative responsiblity.

I’ll explain it with an real world example – determining who is financially responsible for a car accident when both drivers are “at fault”. Bob rolled through the stop sign drunk, but James was speeding and didn’t stop at all. The court would have to decide who is responsible for the damages – the judge might decide Bob is 70% financially responsible and James is 30%.

I use the Blame Game as a way to think through all the factors that contribute to a problem. While driving around New Zealand, I noticed that the FM radio reception is piss-poor. Why is this? Well Brian, there are a number of things that contribute, it isn’t just a simple answer. Ok, so let’s break it down into comparable responsibilities.

Of course there isn’t really a right answer, just something that you can defend. If you are so inclined, help me out by assigning some percentages:

1. Landscape (lots of mountains in the way)
2. Lower frequency band than in the States
3. Differences in how signal is broadcasted (for example using less power to send the signal)
4. Shape of the earth (the spheroid bends away faster here, FM is line of sight)
5. Other
 

Our Blame Game answers can then be used to determine which corrective action will yield the greatest result (also useful would be estimates of how difficult each corrective action would be). Now you’re thinking like a product manager – effort and reward tradeoffs.

Yes, this is something that actually goes through my mind while alone. Not the nerdiest example either (it would probably involve maths (kiwis use “maths” rather than “math”)).

Photo: Randy von Liski